


Scarlet Love

by kathiann



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Denial, Episode Tag, F/M, Gen, Romance, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-04
Updated: 2009-02-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 01:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathiann/pseuds/kathiann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My thoughts on if Rigsby had remembered that he told Van Pelt he loved her in Flame Red. Short one shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarlet Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ebony10 for the beta.

Rigsby woke up slowly. His whole body hurt and his tongue felt heavy and thick. The first thing he noticed when he finally opened his eyes was that Van Pelt, Grace, was gone. The second thing he noticed was that it had started to get dark outside. He wondered what had woken him up and then realized that the pain he felt all over his body was noticably worse in his arm. He looked at his arm as memory started to come back to him.

He had gone into the burning house to get the sheriff. He had gone in to save his life and had gotten burned in the process. He lay there for a minute trying to figure out why it was that he had gone into house.

Right, it seemed like the only thing to do at the time. There had been screaming coming from inside of the house and the fire crews weren't there yet. He had worked on fire squads before; he knew what would happen if no one went in to get the sheriff. He would die a slow, agonizing, painful death. He would never have been able to live with himself if he had just stood there and watched the house burn without doing _something_.

After that it had been a blur; Grace had put the fire on his arm out. There were ambulances and a hospital—doctors and nurses. Then he was back at the hotel room and Grace was there. He was having a hard time remembering anything else. He still felt really groggy. He looked over at the coffee table, noticing the pill bottles and the empty bottle of juice. He remembered Lisbon and Jane coming in to see him, Lisbon had brought the juice. How much pain medicine had he taken?

He needed water. He struggled to get up and felt dizzy. Groaning, he let his head fall back onto the pillow. He decided to lay there for a few more minutes before getting up. There was a memory lurking at the back of his mind, sitting there taunting him, mocking him for not being able to remember. He knew it was important, but what was it?

He lay there for a few more minutes and then he suddenly shot up straight. He didn't seem to notice the pounding in his head, the throbbing in his arm, or the way the room was spinning. He had remembered what had been lurking at the back of his mind. He had told Grace that he loved her. Not just liked her, but LOVED her. What had he been thinking?

Apparently he hadn't been thinking. It was all the medication—he had been as high as a kite, wasn't in his right mind, he…The thoughts just kept running around in his head. What had she said? He couldn't remember. He kept trying. He got up and started to pace around the room. Had he fallen asleep or had the pills just wiped his memory? What was he going to say to her?

Maybe he had imagined it; maybe he hadn't really said it. That's it! He had been hallucinating. He sat back down on the sofa with a thud. He knew deep down that he had not been dreaming. It had been real. What was he going to do?

He would just pretend that he hadn't said anything. If she didn't say anything there was no reason for him to. He would just leave it like that. He didn't need to go causing problems where there were none. He could be professional about it all. That's it, he would just pretend he hadn't said anything or that he had been so high that he couldn't remember anything and there shouldn't be a problem. If Grace brought it up later then they could talk about it, but until then he would just pretend that nothing had happened.

He finally made it to the little fridge in his room to find it had been stocked with bottles of water. He grabbed one and downed half of it. He walked over to the sofa, opened a bottle of pills, took one out, and swallowed it. He would just lie down and hope that the memory would go away again. He fell asleep picturing Grace in his mind and knew that he would have happy dreams.


End file.
